1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to a driving system for a motor vehicle, and more particularly to a driving system arranged to provide a low center of gravity and to optimize the use of available design space.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The requirements to meet air pollution standards while increasing the efficiency of motor vehicles because the limited supply of inexpensive fuels, have posed design problems for the motor vehicle industry. Noise abatement requirements have compounded these problems and led to new concepts in vehicular design.
It has been suggested in the prior art to provide an overtop means presenting a reduction gear ratio of less than 1.0 in an automatic transmission system at high speed travel, in order to reduced the RPM of an internal combustion engine for efficiency purposes. The overdrive means for the overtop means is normally positioned either in the front or back of the transmission system, or, alternatively, an overtop means is provided to cause a reduction gear ratio of up to 1.0 at the desired transmission stage.
These prior art solutions do not result in a reduction in weight of the vehicle body because additional spaced is necessitated for the overtop means and the overdrive means is required to be arranged coaxially with the shaft of the transmission system in both front-engine-front-drive systems (F-F system) and front-engine rear drive systems (F-R system). Further, the installation of overtop means is particularly difficult in rear-engine-rear drive system (R-R system).